Thomas Chalmers wrote in his Application of Christianity to the Commercial and Ordinary Affairs of Life (1821 edition): “Tell us, if the hold we have of a man’s own personal advantage were thus broken down, in how far the virtues of the mercantile world would survive it? Would not the world of trade sustain as violent a derangement on this mighty hold being cut asunder, as the world of nature would on the suspending of the law of gravitation? Would not the whole system, in fact, fall to pieces, and be dissolved? Would not men, when thus released from the magical chain of their own interest, which bound them together into a fair and seeming compact of principle, like dogs of rapine, let loose upon their prey, overleap the barrier which formerly restrained them? Does not this prove, that selfishness, after all, is the grand principle on which the brotherhood of the human race is made to hang together ; and that he who can make the wrath of man to praise him, has also, upon the selfishness of man, caused a most beauteous order of wide and useful intercourse to be suspended?”

As Milbank points out, Chalmers combines this celebration of the providential over-ruling of selfishness for social ends with a distinction between two types of virtue: one that is approved by men, and the other specifically commanded and approved by God: Among the virtues approved by everyone are “compassion, and generosity, and justice, and truth; which,
independently of the religious sanction they obtain from the law of the Saviour, are in themselves so lovely, and so honourable, and of such good report, that they are ever sure to carry general applause along with them, and thus to combine both the characteristics of our text — that he who in these things serveth Christ, is both acceptable to God, and approved of men.”

The other group of virtues is one approved of God but often despised by men: “Among the first class of virtues we would assign a foremost place to all those inward and spiritual graces which enter into the obedience of the affections—highly approved of God, but not at all acceptable to the general taste, or carrying along with them the general congeniality of the world. And then; though they do not possess the ingredient of God’s approbation in a way so separate and unmixed, we would say, that abstinence from profane language, and attendance upon church, and a strict keeping of the sabbath, and the exercises of family worship, and the more rigid degrees of sobriety, and a fearful avoidance of every encroachment on
temperance or chastity, rank more appropriately with the first than with the second class of virtues;
for though there be many in society who have no religion, and yet to whom several of these virtues
are acceptable, yet you will allow, that they do not convey such a universal popularity along with them.”

There is an obvious truth here. Christians do think some virtues and practices essential to abundant life that others see as pointless. But Chalmers ends up with an odd social theory, and a strange ethic. The bond of human society is selfishness and self-interest, rather than charity or generosity. Charity and generosity are enjoined by God and are approved by men, but they are not, anyway, distinctively Christian virtues. The distinctively theological virtues are not faith, hope, and charity, but inner affections, clean language, sabbath keeping, and self-restraint in sex and drink. These distinctively Christian virtues dare not the glue of society; that role is played by providentially guided vice (selfishness) and generic virtues. Yet, the virtues approved by God such as restraint and sobriety do, in what Milbank calls a Weberian fashion, have inner-worldly results.

The ethical/pastoral import of this paradigm is unsettling. What Chalmers calls the “merely social” virtues of society - honesty, justice, and generosity among them - do not provide so suitable “mark of religion” as attending church and keeping Sabbath. Chalmers is death on hypocrisy; he wants heart religion. But it’s hard to see how this paradigm could encourage anything but hypocrisy: “Yes, my neighbor is just and generous, but he cusses and drinks, so he’s lower on the scale of sanctification than I am.”

As Chalmbers says, “The first class of virtues bear the character of religiousness more strongly, just
because they bear that character more singly. The people who are without, might, no doubt, see in every real Christian the virtues of the second class also; but these virtues do not belong to them peculiarly and exclusively. For though it be true, that every religious man must be honest, the converse does not follow, that every honest man must be religious. And it is because the social accomplishments do not form the
specific, that neither do they form the most prominent and distinguishing marks of Christianity.”